[Q&A] Political Predictions Repository

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This is a place to deposit political predictions you'd like to make in public, so that they can be easily found and referenced in the future. Thus, it is not a discussion thread; discussions of predictions should take place in other threads as conversations proceed. Explicit clarification questions and answers are fine, but "Why do you think that?" expositions should occur elsewhere so as not to clutter the repository. Predictions should be narrowly defined; testable with publicly available information at all times; have an explicit date range; and refer to events, people and places explicitly so as to leave no doubt of resolution; and they should be numbered sequentially so that they are easier to find at later dates. Edits must be clearly marked and original text preserved through the use of strike-throughs if the prediction is modified. Please avoid the use of generalities - "The President will change his mind on this topic" is less useful than "The President will change his policy from yes to no on this topic", because the latter prevents a tiny change from being claimed as success. Failed predictions should be marked in bold at the top of the post via an edit, leaving the rest intact.

I have stated in the past that I believe that President Trump will be impeached. I will put that here as the following prediction:

Impeachment charges will be placed against President Trump before the first anniversary of his inauguration.

Let's see your explicit, testable, dated predictions, large and small, about politics in the US and other countries. What's going to happen, and when? Let us know what you expect.

Edited 11/11/16 to add bolding and prediction number.

Successful Predictions:

11/26/2016 - Not in thread - Pizzaddict commented "This, or he will impose a 35% tariff on imports from Mexico and say the money is going towards the wall, thus Mexico is paying for the wall." I feel this is close enough to warrant the notice.

The two sides to every story are true and false, not yours and theirs. Facts are not political; lies are. - Deven Green (Mrs. Betty Bowers)

Cool thread idea - this was not really a hard prediction, but I posted this in the original Election thread back in March when Robear asked me if any Republican had a path to victory

Basically, he'd do much better against Hillary than Bernie. He would lose moderates, but, as the primary numbers have shown, he motivates the white working class (including traditional Reagan Democrats) to come out huge. I'd also argue that his demographics problem can be overcome via the map - the relatively large numbers of hispanics are actually concentrated in a few areas, and traditional swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio have comparatively few. The way I see it, his path to victory involves running the deep south, getting the rust belt, then flipping a few NE states, and it would come down to Arizona and Virginia maybe?

Trump will win a 2nd term. And this time he'll win the popular vote. Why?

- The economy will continue to slowly improve.
- Conservative media complex will switch gears from "The sky is falling cause Obama!" to "Everything's great cause Trump!". Mainstream media will continue to at least try to take a more nuanced, objective approach that bores everyone.
- Democrats won't follow the Republican strategy of "obstruct everything" and will actually work with Trump in good faith on a few bills, for the good of the country. Trump and his supporters will claim that he was able to break through partisan gridlock where Obama was not.

So the general mood will be relatively optimistic compared to the last few years.

And of course: Not nearly enough people will care enough about the sticking up for the environment, minorities, LGBT rights and so on, for that to make a difference.

Trump will win a 2nd term. And this time he'll win the popular vote. Why?

- The economy will continue to slowly improve.
- Conservative media complex will switch gears from "The sky is falling cause Obama!" to "Everything's great cause Trump!". Mainstream media will continue to at least try to take a more nuanced, objective approach that bores everyone.
- Democrats won't follow the Republican strategy of "obstruct everything" and will actually work with Trump in good faith on a few bills, for the good of the country. Trump and his supporters will claim that he was able to break through partisan gridlock where Obama was not.

So the general mood will be relatively optimistic compared to the last few years.

And of course: Not nearly enough people will care enough about the sticking up for the environment, minorities, LGBT rights and so on, for that to make a difference.

Given most of his economic plans seem to be Bush II ver. 2.0, I predict the economy is noooooooooot going to be doing so great, but perception will make up that difference anyway.

"What forest are you talking about?! I can't see anything with all these trees in the way!" ~Farscry

Prediction - the Democratic Party will buy their own hype about Bernie Sanders being Liberal Jesus and will try to nominate him or someone like him. Later, there will be a slight popping noise as the DNC creates a weird black hole by disappearing up its own backside.

Given that the Hillary supporters are trying to blame Comey and the Bernie supporters are trying to pretend it was 100% obvious clear and perfect that Bernie would have won in a landslide, I see extremely little hope for the Democratic Party to actually grasp what happened.

"Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense."

Prediction - the Democratic Party will buy their own hype about Bernie Sanders being Liberal Jesus and will try to nominate him or someone like him. Later, there will be a slight popping noise as the DNC creates a weird black hole by disappearing up its own backside.

Given that the Hillary supporters are trying to blame Comey and the Bernie supporters are trying to pretend it was 100% obvious clear and perfect that Bernie would have won in a landslide, I see extremely little hope for the Democratic Party to actually grasp what happened.

Sanders' support of Keith Ellison for DNC chair is pretty positive. His piece published on the NYT yesterday, behind the paywall now, suggests he'd have remained completely clueless on minority issues and would have been slaughtered when none turned out to vote.

Given most of his economic plans seem to be Bush II ver. 2.0, I predict the economy is noooooooooot going to be doing so great, but perception will make up that difference anyway.

Yeah, so to drag my prediction out further... Democrats gradually gain in Congress and a Democratic president is elected in 2024 due to lagging economy. Republican pundits initially blame their loss and the economy on Trump not being a "true conservative" then quickly shift to blaming the new president. Republicans in Congress again turn to obstructing everything until they get into power again.

Hmm... Doesn't feel like I'm going out on a big limb here TBH. How's this? The new president in 2024 will be a woman. Maybe Kamala Harris?

I don't expect Trump to serve a full term. He might be impeached, but I think it far more likely that he just resigns after making some vague allusions to "people preventing him from doing what needs to be done," which is of course just him cutting his losses after deciding that the presidency is too much work for too little tangible reward.
If he does last a full term it will only be because he's handed over the reigns entirely to Pence and only shows up in DC for periodic photo ops and to bluster through the State of the Union address.

"I told all your colleagues, those clown comics, to fix their hearts or die."

Okay, while this is interesting, this is *not* a Discussion thread. Please spin up other threads for those topics; this is a *repository*, to make predictions easier to find. If we stuff it with discussion, it'll be just as hard to find predictions as usual, and that defeats the purpose of the thread.

Also, for Prediction 2 - What measures of success should we look at for the economy? Stock market index up by what percent? Housing starts up by what percent? And so forth. What would be the minimum number of bills co-sponsored by Dems and Reps to count as success? Which conservative outlets would count for judging attitude changes, and which mainstream outlets.

*Please* be as specific as possible. That's the fun of it.

The two sides to every story are true and false, not yours and theirs. Facts are not political; lies are. - Deven Green (Mrs. Betty Bowers)

Predictions #3: The Doomsday Predictions: Stuff I don't want to see happen by 2020 but very well might:
1. Climate change will become unavoidable and permanent. Republicans will ignore it anyway. (Edit: Specifics: Bad prediction: 4C by 2100. Doomsday prediction: 7C by 2100, Earth unavoidably becomes like Venus. Humans are dead before the Venus thing, due to the die-off of oxygen producing phytoplankton.)

2. Economy: We lose reserve currency status

2A. The attempts to treat government debt like business debt will cause the US Dollar to lose its current de facto reserve currency status. The US Economy collapses as a result. Hyperinflation ensues. (Specific, less doomsday prediction: inflation goes up significantly by 2018. Doomsday prediction: hyperinflation by 2024.)

2B. Related to that: the attempts to eliminate our trade deficit will be successful. This also loses our reserve currency status. It also weakens the dollar, pushes the price of imports through the roof, and means that other countries will stop spending money here as foreign capital looks elsewhere. (Specific prediction: US trade deficit will be eliminated by 2020. This will be bad.)

2C. Even if we don't lose reserve currency status, a weak dollar means the collapse of our just-in-time supply chains, as the US manufacturers who use imported parts in their processes see a rise in price. Remember: it's currently cheaper and faster to get something manufactured in Asia and shipped here. Bringing that back to the US takes time, investment capital (hope they didn't just flee elsewhere), and a massive increase in price or a massive decrease in wages. (Specific prediction: real average hourly earnings significantly decreased.)

3. Economy: Specific aspects of the economy

3A. The price of computers in particular will spike, because many of the silicon foundries and semiconductor fabricators are overseas. It takes a long time to build a new foundry. Oh, and the price of hard drives. And cell phones. (I don't know which way the compensation will go: less performance, slower development, just higher prices? I'll just predict that you'll be less happy with your options, though as long as Moore's law isn't completely broken they'll probably still be faster than today's.)

3B. Globally, there will be fewer people employed in manufacturing jobs in 2020 than there were in 2016. (This is a safe bet.) This will also the be case for the US in particular. (This is an even safer bet, if we go by percentages; raw numbers might hold steady.)

3C. Employment in the coal industry is lower in 2020 than in 2016, because it was outcompeted by natural gas.

1. Russia testing the limits of NATO and EU unity.
Over the next 2 years Putin will start to poke at Eastern European countries. Russian minority protests, violence toward said minorities, violence from said minorities. It will be incited and coordinated by Russia, but evidence will be weak, and the various 'Putin verstehers' in US and Europe will defend Putin.
There will be increasingly frequent Russian military activities in Baltic and Scandinavia (Finland /Sweden), continuously breaching their airspace and national waters. At least one incident will have casualties.

2. French election.One of two:
a) Marine Le Pen narrowly win presidential election in France, promising to end the "Islamic threat" and referendum on leaving EU.
Or
b) The conservative candidate wins, but it happens by running a campaign that is virtually identical to Marine Le Pens.

Yeah, we're past the point where we might have made enough impact to reverse it. At this point all we can hope to do is mitigate it (and I don't think we, as a civilization, have the willpower to even do that properly).

"We are at our best when we work together. We are at our worst when we expend valuable and finite energy and resources destroying one another." - Paleocon, regarding humanity.

Yeah, we're past the point where we might have made enough impact to reverse it. At this point all we can hope to do is mitigate it (and I don't think we, as a civilization, have the willpower to even do that properly).

That's what I mean. My prediction is that it's permanent and I don't think we'll ever mitigate it.

I have stated in the past that I believe that President Trump will be impeached. I will put that here as the following prediction:

Impeachment charges will be placed against President Trump before the first anniversary of his inauguration.

Let's see your explicit, testable, dated predictions, large and small, about politics in the US and other countries. What's going to happen, and when? Let us know what you expect.

Edited 11/11/16 to add bolding and prediction number.

I'll counter this prediction. I think Trump is far too valuable as a puppet and scapegoat for the GOP to allow this to happen unless it's absolutely unavoidable. He is owned by the establishment even now. Look at his cabinet and advisor selections. Republicans can experiment through him without destroying a real politician's career.

Predictions #6

6.1 - Trump will be both a puppet and scapegoat of the conservative establishment, which will do everything in its power to avoid his impeachment while he remains useful. Information leaks will prove this is the case, but no one will do anything about it.

6.2 - Democrats will call for impeachment no fewer than three times during his tenure. All will fail.

(Sorry. The prediction was a work in progress.)

EDIT: Thinking on it more, that split into two predictions. I also made the first more specific.

EDIT 2: Provided a number for my prediction post.

"I basically do what Lou says." -- Yonder
"My love is for Lou." -- LiquidMantis
"LouZiffer is a gentleman, a rogue, and a fantastic lover." -- Vector
"You could yoink it for a Sig." -- Demosthenes

Yeah, we're past the point where we might have made enough impact to reverse it. At this point all we can hope to do is mitigate it (and I don't think we, as a civilization, have the willpower to even do that properly).

That's what I mean. My prediction is that it's permanent and I don't think we'll ever mitigate it.

I'm afraid that once the migration from now barren areas gets going, this will actually reinforce racist candidates like Trump, Le Pen or Wilders.

The Italian PM, Matteo Renzi, is attempting to reform Italian politics. While the mertis of the referendum can be debated, Renzi has staked his political future on them. If he resigns and another general election is called (leading to the 64th government in 71 years for Italy) that sets up the prospect for the populist Five Star Movement to govern.

2. Germany will remain a Liberal Democracy

France will swing right, Austria might vote for far-right head of state, the Dutch Freedom Party could be part of the the next goverment in Holland but Germany's election will see Liberal values being promoted. With a strong Green Party there as well, Climate Change could be a large issue as well.

Germany is now cornerstone of Liberal Democracy. Incredible.

And Shadout, you were right and I was wrong about how far the support for the far-right is.

Prediction:Something somewhere American will blow up and we'll begin attacking Iran.
Timeframe: Once the bloom is off the rose and the first handful of core supporters begin questioning the actions of President Trump. Cynical me says shortly after the "first 100 days in office" turns out to be a pipe dream.

Predictions: The Dystopian Predictions: We're living in a YA novel by 2020

1. A significant number of people currently believe that Trump won the popular vote. That the mainstream news networks saying otherwise will become an example of how they lie to us.

2. A major newspaper or network is critical of the president, and is suppressed. In the aftermath, the government establishes a Department of Truth to ensure that news coverage conforms to the accepted, acknowledged reality.

3. Despite this, the media will mostly go along with the administration's line and fail to call out basic false claims.

4. Democrats will lose enough of the 2018 governor and state legislature races that the Republicans will be able to redistrict enough states to eliminate the Democratic Party's realistic chances in 2020.

5. The wall will be built. The only way to effectively enforce it will be to treat it like the Iron Curtain, killing anyone who attempts to cross. Americans will mostly not care about the deaths. (Specific: dozens of actively caused deaths on the border.)

6. The plan to deport Hispanic and Muslim people will run into trouble when the destinations won't accept them in enough numbers. Temporary pre-deportation camps are set up to hold them. They will effectively be permanent by 2020.

7. Before 2020, a terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremists) leads to the suspension of the Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. Women's rights are curtailed, gender roles are enforced, and society is reorganized along militaristic lines, inspired by a Dominionist view of Old Testament society.

8. Hate-motivated attacks will continue to rise. A genocidal white-power uprising will occur before 2020, such as the 1898 Wilmington coup by white supremacists or the 1921 Tulsa attack. The right-wing media sources will continue to deny that hate crimes are happening.

9. Flint will still have lead in the water in 2020. The Republican governor who tried to cover it up will get off scot-free.

10. Before 2020, a Bundy-style uprising will seize Federal land; this will become an excuse to privatize it.

11. Economic realignment into privatized corporate syndicates, splitting the difference between capitalistic corporations and government control. The two ends move towards each other: Medicaid is privatized. A major auto manufacturer or bank fails, becomes semi-nationalized.

12. Presidential rallies are held regularly. By 2020, non-attendance becomes a reason for suspicion.

13. There will be no pivot. Trump has never changed in the past and will not change in the future.

1 Trump ends up similar to Arnold in California and finds that the establishment on both sides won't let him get too crazy. He moves more to the center and backs off on the Muslim ban and massive deportation.

2 Abortion, gay marriage and marijuana legalization get kicked to the state level. While far from ideal, all three of these things will remain legal in blue states.

3 Renegotiated trade deals will lead to a modest bump in the economy especially for the working class. Companies find it in their interest to reinvest more in America than offshore thanks to lower corporate rate and high penalties for relocating overseas.

4 Tech breakthroughs in the private sector help offset the climate change being done at the federal level. Pro business Trump helps to spur some of these changes.

5 Democrats begin to fight like hell and save Obamacare with help from the medical industry who see the churn from repeal as being worse than staying with the status quo.

My dark depressing predictions:

1 Hate crimes spike and once again we see several high profile lynchings, including at least one case where law enforcement are involved. Trump drags his feet which could lead to Watts or Rodney King level unrest.

2 We go to war with Iran, North Korea, or both around the time of the next election. Wag the Dog becomes the second movie to become reality (Idiocracy is already real now).

3 Temporary gains in the economy are offset by another stock market crash or credit crisis from ballooning debt.

4 Ignoring climate change leads to runaway feedback loops that release massive levels of methane into the air. All life is extinguished in continent wide firestorms.